Nothing Gold Can Stay
by NoFootprintsInSand
Summary: Her dreams of him are always mute, silent as the falling snow.


When she thinks of him she thinks of winter. Perhaps because when last she saw him, his blood was spilling onto snow. Red and white, and the black in his eyes.

That is absurd, of course.

He is incendiary; he burns everything he touches. His rage simmers hot enough to vaporise all of winter. He is not a child of snow and frost; he is a creature of incandescence and lava.

Even so.

She dreams of him at night sometimes, and when she does she always sees his words turn to mist in the cold.

She can never hear what he says though. Her dreams of him are always mute, silent as the falling snow.

* * *

She returns the saber and she earns instruction. On a craggy, beautiful island surrounded by water and not sand she is schooled in ancient knowledge and immense power.

She unearths within her a gift ( _curse_ ) for the ravaging of minds. Or, perhaps, it was _unlocked_. By _him_ , back in that shiny torture chamber, where their minds briefly looped about each other, joined, and danced among the ashes of his dead.

Now she is able to reach deep into anyone and rearrange and steal and obliterate.

And they, noble generals, old masters and dashing rebels, they use it. They use her.

They tell her there is no other way; this is necessary. Mercenary is as mercenary does. How else can they win? How else can they fight evil but to swirl their own fingertips into darkness and perhaps, by doing so, _prevail?_

So she penetrates and infiltrates, runs missions tantalisingly close to suicide, she breaks into systems and ships and minds and what is the difference anyway?

She does not know where she ends and her enemies begin. Their tarnish is her tarnish and their deeds are hers. Lines are blurred and warped and she wishes she had stayed on the green island.

But she did not. She left, she is here now, and she does as she is asked. She is full, she is overflowing, with Force. It is not hard, except when it is.

She is stronger fiercer meaner madder ( _sadder_ ).

She is a weapon.

She is abhorrent.

Oh, there is self-loathing in all of their eyes now but she, she hates hating herself the most.

* * *

"And we are the good guys," she whispers to the unseeing eyes of an agent for the other side. The man is a husk, she was too rough, too rushed, left too much of a mess when she stole all of his secrets, and he will never ever come back to himself.

By now she is darker than grey but his empty eyes will still haunt her.

They all haunt her.

She is grateful for that much, at least.

She turns to leave, she is in a hurry, she must not be detected, but then _he_ is there. Unmasked, what a pity. Still and black with furrowed cheeks and furnace eyes. Soft lips and knuckles clenched to white.

The first time she has seen him since they fought to the edge of death, wrapped in winter and rage.

The rage is still coiling between them; the rage is still there.

Oh yes, he wants to break her neck, but his voice is soft.

 _"_ _Look_ at what you have done. I don't think this man can ever be put back together again. Do you?"

He smiles at her then and his eyes shine with fanaticism and promises of terror deeds. She supposes that is how it should be.

You do not cleave your own father's heart in two and then turn your back on _why_.

"I did what I had to do."

"Don't we all."

She bares her teeth and advances. He laughs.

She escapes with blood trickling down her collarbone while he is distracted by a second slash across his face.

Like him, she is not just good at violating minds. She can swing a saber too.

* * *

They meet again, over and over in fact, and somehow they never kill each other. They do try very hard though, and the scars are beautiful. When she is busy trying to survive him she does not think of what she has become, and it is thrilling and delicious and addictive.

Trying to kill him is addictive. Trying to not be killed by him is addictive. Adrenaline replacing shame is addictive.

She grows to fear respite. She thinks too much when she not in danger.

She misses him when she feels safe.

* * *

Somehow he always finds her now, every mission, every time. They fight with sabers and kicks and words, and his mouth hurts much more than his fists. He mocks what she has become, and every word from him is honest. She denies it anyway. Lying is the most trivial of her sins. Lies can delight, especially those she wishes be truth. And so she lies straight to his face:

"I will never be like you!"

He cannot even be bothered to laugh at her. "Life is ugly, little one", he says, "and soon, soon you will fall further than I have ever done.'

This time he kisses her instead of wounding her before she escapes, but he still means for it to hurt, and it does.

She does not wipe him from her mouth though. She likes the poison on his tongue.

* * *

The change is subtle, but it is there. Hairline fractures in her will, twitches in his cheeks.

Vibrations in bone.

They cannot gain access to each other's minds, they are both far too fond of walls, but she wants him to _see_. So one day she throws her saber down and removes her clothes, stands bare before him and lets him read all that is written on her skin. Let him try telling the truths from the lies.

 _She_ cannot. Not anymore.

"This means nothing," he growls into her neck.

 _Now who is telling lies?_ she thinks as she makes him as bare as she.

* * *

She begins to consent to even more missions, more insane incursions into enemy land.

She knows that he lies in wait for her there.

* * *

He is captured. Dumb luck, and he is brought to the bridge shackled and unmasked, blood on his forehead. He is unrepentant and unbroken, and glories in his mother's shattered heart.

She hates what he is and she has never thought him more compelling than when he looks down his large nose at them all, disdain and mockery flashing in his eyes. There is plenty for her too; she sees it when they catch each other's eye. She is nothing but his enemy then, and that is as it should be.

It is mostly true, after all.

That same night she helps him escape. He does not thank her.

She does not want him to.

* * *

War continues, never-ending and repugnant, around and around they all go. She spends more time in strangers' heads than her own, and is this their darkness or hers? It is difficult to tell these days. She rents and slashes and plunders more minds than she can count and perhaps if her side win they will name a planet after her.

She does not care if they win or lose anymore. She cares about forgetting.

She forgets with him, until he makes her remember again.

 _She_ can never win.

* * *

He calls for her. The first time they meet on neutral ground, and he has asked her to a world of spring. Perhaps it is always spring here, she does not know, but she gasps lungfuls of air heavy with rebirth as she steps off her ship.

Pines wrapped in mist and how she loves the smell. Rain and earth and sap, and _him._

She finds him among the trees. She meets his eyes and knows that he has given in, for now at least. He is warm and she is shrouded in his breath. This is beautiful, almost as beautiful as it is ugly.

It will never get better than this.

"Are you crying? You taste of salt."

"I don't cry. Ever."

He laughs and licks rain tears from her cheeks and tells her she taste exquisite in his mouth. He holds her too hard but that is ok because how else will she feel him when he is not here? He is her anchor now and she must wear his imprint on her skin always or she will fade, become transparent. Disappear.

What has she become? Where has she gone?

Here. She is right here.

Oh, she is faster than light but she will never get away from him.

* * *

From now on stolen seconds, hours, never days. Few and far between and how are they meant to subsist on only crumbs?

Nevertheless those crumbs are of gold, shiny flecks in mud, faint flickers of stars in a thunderous sky.

Dappled sun on budded leaves.

Not ever enough.

* * *

Her turn now, they are playing tit for tat, how funny.

Her mind warps and bends as she is dragged between two troopers, but she refuses to mutely call for him. Gleaming chrome and sterile surfaces, this is familiar, after all. She can manage, she has been here before.

They torture her of course, and she delights in the pain because she deserves it, and she laughs in their faces as she tells them nothing.

She descends inside herself, goes deeper than ever before. Far removed. Going, going. Gone.

( _will she find a part of him hidden away in there, nestled uncomfortably in the very darkest fissures of her? She does not dare look)_

Not knowing if he will help makes it even more delirious and delicious but he does. He releases her, refuses to look at her as she quickly moves past him in the airlock and disappears out into black space.

Turns out she has an easier time of betrayal than him. Who would have thought it?

She laughs into vacuum. There is blood on her smile.

* * *

He sees to it that they always meet where it is spring and he is doing it for her even though he will not ever admit it. A gift. Enveloping her in green, slipping and sliding among trees, fervent fistfuls of moss and the imprint of needles and bark on her back.

Golds and greens, yes, but always winter in his eyes.

 _(because nothing gold can stay)_

She pretends not to notice.

"Why haven't you ever tried to convince me to come with you, join your side?"

He looks away. "How could I do that? How could I make you choose?"

 _Oh in a strange twisted way you are more principled, more true. Because maybe I would, for you, only for you._

But she keeps the words inside and her mind carefully blank. She can do at least that much for her side, for what ought be right.

Her kisses leave a trail of destruction though, and she cries over what he cannot see.

* * *

Oh look, she has really made a mess now, she ripped into too many minds at once, and there are empty bodies at her feet. Beating hearts and excavated souls. Is she as empty as them, or is she too full of living shadows to die?

She is too paralysed to leave; she stands frozen and exposed on an enemy ship. Let them catch her. This is too much. She has gone too far. They have gone too far. Nothing can justify this, nothing can make it right.

He finds her. Perhaps she let a mute whimper through.

He clutches her shoulder, strokes her hair. He is gentle, and that makes it worse. "Just look at you. Look at what you've become." His voice is both tender and cruel. "I think I liked you better innocent."

"Innocence is _impotence_!"

She recoils from the hysteria in her own voice, rips away from him, refuses to cry. She does not deserve the relief of her own tears.

He, he drags fingers through his hair, whips around and around, kinetic energy and rage trapped forever in too small a space. His body cannot ever be enough to contain him. He whispers, but she would much rather he scream.

"I don't think I can do this anymore. My sacrifices are worthless when I'm with you. I trust you can find your own way out?"

A mocking bow, and he walks away, steps over live corpses without looking back but oh, they are not done. She knows they are not done.

They are not ever done.

* * *

It has been too long without him and she chokes on her words and her life because how can she breathe without his air? Paralysed, trapped inside, a ghost spiralling in his void.

She scratches against glass and she lies herself to sleep.

But her lies grows thinner and thinner, thinner even than dreams.

And then, a break, a rupture she fancies she can almost feel when he calls for her again.

* * *

She is late by several days and he is pacing among the pines, too frantic to allow her to breathe on her own. His lips are too hard, his hands are brutal. "Where have you been? How I've waited. How I have longed for you."

He hurts her but that is fine, the pain is good, the pain means they are together again, at last, and she wraps herself around him, she breathes him inside of her and oh!

"I want your tongue here, I want to hold your spine in my hands, I want your bones, your bones are mine, don't ever leave me again, don't you dare you are mine, you are…"

He pants and raves and it is so unlike him and she laughs and she cries but her nose is pressed to his throat and she thinks she might be home.

"I'm fading," she says and she drowns in him even as she tries to suck him dry.

* * *

So the deadlock continues. They meet in battle, they meet among pines.

They rest on moss.

He grows ever angrier, with her, with himself. He chose his path a long while ago, and she is the spectre standing in his way, an unbearable memento, the cause of a betrayal too great for him to bear.

"Why have you never asked me to leave, run away with you?"

"Because you wouldn't come."

"No," he agrees. "I wouldn't."

She moves underneath him and he moves above her and she wonders if they have minutes or hours this time.

"I detest you for doing this to me," he whispers and his voice is tender but the tenderness is a lie.

 _I cannot bear to see how you end._ His words flitter faintly inside her, wordless communion for the first time since the day they met. It is too close, she doesn't want him there.

Nevertheless. Nevertheless she will take what she can get and so will he.

But he hates loving her. She is well versed in lying to herself, but she cannot lie about that.

She can shut her eyes though. She can move against him and whisper incantations into his scars and scratch love into his skin.

Little deaths and rebirths – yes, greens and golds in the corner of her eye! – even as gravity pulls and tugs them ever downward.

Gravity will win. Gravity always win, even in space.

* * *

Battle.

Again.

The very air is smeared with blood and they are losing people on both sides, little pieces of lives floating all about them, but they very studiously do not kill each other.

She longs for pines wrapped in mist. When she meets his eye for a lost second she can see that he longs for them too. A quick kiss in the trenches, a salvo from opposing sides, how will this end?

How will it _not_ end?

At this stage, oh at this stage it is just a competition to see which one of them will shatter the hardest.

And they are both so fucking _competitive._

* * *

It comes.

He has asked her to a world of winter, and she can smell the end on the cold air, feel its touch in the snowflakes tangling in her hair. She sees it in his dark eyes when she comes upon him standing silently among the trees, reads it written in the furrows on his cheeks. Unintelligible letters, beautifully drawn.

She laughs, but the sound is eaten by the cold.

Oh, just look at the blood-spattered tracks they have left across their lives, imprinted right here on the snow. Moonlight makes the blood glint of silver.

He chose this place well, and she hopes this will hurt him as much as it will hurt her.

It is only fair.

He does not give her any time, any breathing room. He never has. He hits her as soon as she stops before him, shatters all her bones. "I want you to do it to me. What you do. I can't bear this anymore; it hurts too much… this treachery. I'm being torn apart. I want it to end."

Echoes from the past pierces her skin, kisses like razors, a thousand cuts. She has heard those words before, after all. She was an impotent spectator then, but now…

She was not prepared for this. She had not expected this. Not _this,_ oh please...

She wants to claw at his face, scream at him until her voice is raw and gone, but she remains still and mute and grateful for her frozen tears.

He wants to forget. She would rather hurt into immeasurable infinity than wipe any part of him from her insides, but he wants to forget. She cannot fathom this.

But then, he always was the bigger coward.

The biggest zealot.

And more broken even than her.

She cannot deny him a single thing.

He takes her face in his hands and he holds her too fiercely, forcing everything he cannot say into her temples harder than she can bear but not hard enough.

"I hated you. I loved you, too."

He is already speaking of the past, standing here in the present clutching her heart in his fist, and this time her laugh is loud and ugly and full of knives.

"I know.'

Then without allowing herself the boon of hesitation she reaches with her mind into his and tears out what they are to each other. Erases what they have become together, burns away memories with acid tears. She removes it all, and then, because how can she not, she cauterises the edges of the wound she leaves behind. She cannot bear that he would hurt.

She stands back and watches as the warped love and unhinged passion in his eyes is replaced with emptiness; sees emptiness mutate into cold focus and raging intent as awareness bleeds into him once more and his gaze takes her in

y _es,_ _what a fucked up full circle we have danced_.

standing there in front of him in the snow.

She has done a good job. Perhaps the best she has ever done _(for you I did it for you)_. Everything that is _him_ is left whole, but there is nothing left of love nor memories of greens and golds as he unsheathes his saber and prepares to cleave her in two.

There is dust in her veins and she is too tired to run.

She turns and runs anyway.

 _(oh she is faster than light but she will never get away from him)_

* * *

 _The title of this piece is from a beautiful poem by Robert Frost_


End file.
